There were truffles and caviar—staples of haute cuisine, supposedly meant to assure guests that no compromises were made in selecting the finest ingredients. But what I really enjoyed was the squash.
It was filled with tiny pork cracklings and pickled quince, and topped with thinly sliced almonds (raw?) - a perfect example of the thread of acidity that runs through most of the menu. And of the technical rigor and time that David Žefran puts into each dish.
“I’m very technical. Even though I’m self-taught”, he tells me.
“Everybody can just put a leaf on a plate and put a sauce and that’s it. And for me...it devalues it. I take pride in honing my craft. It’s really a simple dish, but all of those elements have five different ingredients that build complexity.”
David has an unusual background: no culinary school training, no more than five years’ experience in other restaurants—two of those in a burger house—and a brief two-month stint at Frantzén in Stockholm.
And yet, his restaurant in northern Slovenia got its first star a few months after opening in 2022, and a second one the following year.
“It was learning a lot about flavour combinations, learning about techniques, spices, things like that, broadening the knowledge about different cuisines, how to do this sauce, how to do that sauce, just trial and error, trial and error. But what I think that I have is that I know flavours.”
I tend to agree as I taste the pork head with crayfish and pickles in the tiny kitchen populated by several young chefs.
“How do you see yourself as a mentor?”, I ask.
“I like to tailor my approach to different people. I want to be kind with a person that needs that kindness and tough with a person that needs that toughness. And that means adjusting yourself quite a lot on a daily basis”.
Interesting approach, I thought to myself. But it must be a challenge.
“Leadership is actually a hard thing. To do it right, it’s really hard. Because you need to have yourself under control, like, in those moments, you know how it is, especially if you are a bit of a control freak, a bit of a perfectionist, and passionate.”
Indeed. But it seems to be working. Less